


Bad Decisions All Around

by kryptonian_imagines



Series: Missed Exit [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 13:16:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kryptonian_imagines/pseuds/kryptonian_imagines
Summary: Reader awakens and makes a series of bad decisions.





	Bad Decisions All Around

Sergeant Barnes was a hell of a lot cuter in person than in the history books. You regretted having to fly away from him, but you had to prove to yourself that you were just dreaming. Watching the bar drift further and further away made you feel guilty though, and it made you want to wake up. You thought hard about how you were dreaming but you couldn’t quite wake up even though you knew none of this wasn’t real. The stars in the night sky, the huge full moon and cold breeze weren’t real. You remembered a trick you’d read about online; count your fingers and if you have more than you should, it can wake you up. Still floating along with the wind you looked at your left hand.  
“One, two, three,” you counted, “four, five, six, seven. Okay, seven fingers is not right so I am dreaming.” You sighed, somehow relieved. Then, a surge of adrenaline filled your body.  
You startled, awake at last. You leaned up in bed, breaths coming quickly as you tried to reach for your cell on the bedside stand. Instead there was a notepad and a pen. You crumpled the small pad of paper in your hand and looked at it with furrowed brows. Dropping it back to the nightstand, you counted your fingers again.  
“One, two, three, four, five.” You let out a breath, knowing you really were awake now.  
“This is the real world,” a woman said. You jumped, your heart skipping more beats than you thought possible. Sitting up in bed you were ready to pounce on the intruder only to realize that you weren’t in your hotel room. Your eyes drifted over the antique setting, a little dusty and unkempt, and definitely not where you’d gone to sleep last night. Finally, after taking in the wooden rocking chair in the corner, the shabby quilt that covered your legs, your eyes landed on a woman in an army uniform. Her hair was styled around her shoulders, her lips a bright red. She licked them as she folded her hands behind her back, watching you.  
“You--you’re Peggy Carter,” you said, stupefied.  
Her sculpted eyebrows raised. Before she could even open her mouth to give a reply you climbed out of bed. Struggling with the blankets around your ankles you stumbled towards her, finally freeing yourself of the scratchy shackles. You pushed past her to the door, pulling it open in a rush of panic. Your body buzzed with new energy.   
“No, no, no,” you muttered. The place you were in smelled like dirt and cigarette smoke. The floorboards creaked under your weight, each one louder than the last it seemed. Your vision became a tunnel, desperate to get out of wherever the hell you were and back to reality.  
You bumped into a large red-haired man--Dum Dum Dugan. He said something to you but you just shook your head and kept walking, aiming for the stairs down the hall.  
While you scrambled to get...anywhere, Peggy stepped out of the room behind you. She shook her head at Dugan when he asked if he should stop you, both of them knowing that you were clearly out of your comfort zone. Unbeknownst to you, they suspected you were a spy for the Nazi’s. Their plan was to see what you would do if your cover wasn’t blown.  
You took each step quickly, your fingers gripping the railing tightly. The rough wood dug into your skin, but you were too preoccupied with getting outside to notice. A quick glance to the right and you saw that you were in the bar from last night. Last night when you travelled back into the 1940’s. You burst through the front door, and took in a deep breath.  
Of cigarette smoke. You started to cough. On your right were two men in uniform smoking and playing cards. They didn’t seem at all startled by your sudden appearance, but they did watch you with tense shoulders.   
The small layer of snow on the ground crunched beneath your sneakers as you took a few steps forward. You gulped in more air, clearer air, but it still had the faint aroma of smoke. Smoke from a fire, you realized, but looking around you couldn’t find the source. You pressed your palms against your knees and leaned over.  
“The ghost awakens,” a man said behind you. You look over your shoulder to see Bucky Barnes leaning against a post. He stood beneath a grey sheet that had been hung above to replace the wooden pergola that had once been there. As you straightened you blinked at him, taking in his appearance.  
Dressed in a blue jacket, it was undone to reveal the uniform beneath. In all the media and textbooks you’d seen in your life his hair was always perfectly combed, but now it was loose over his forehead. You focused on his bangs so much that he seemed to notice, and pushed them back. It was enough of a movement to draw you from your gawking.  
“Ghost?” you questioned.   
Bucky shrugged, staying where he was. His eyes drifted over the other buildings and soldiers walking around you. You jumped when one stepped on a particularly loud ice patch. Bucky said, “Well, you appear in the shadows groaning, some might call that a ghost.”  
Jeez, was that really what happened? Unable to think of a plausible reason, you found yourself wanting to tell the truth. Would they find it that crazy that someone came from the future? After all, look at how Captain America came to be. As you mulled over what to do you realized that the man before you had no idea what was coming. The brainwashing, the murders, the years of torture...you felt your lower lip quiver. This really was Bucky Barnes in front of you, not the Winter Soldier.   
You swallowed the lump in your throat.  
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Bucky said, holding his hands up, “I didn’t mean to make you cry, I--”  
“This is a first, Bucky making someone cry.” None other than Captain America himself stepped up beside you. You jumped to the left at his appearance. Tall and muscular, Steve looked just like he did in the history books, and nothing like what you’d seen in the recent press. You wondered what would happen if you told him he would lead the fight against aliens in New York City one day...and that day was literally in the next century. Your hand flew to cover your mouth.  
“Oh, they’re getting that look again,” Bucky said. He stepped into the snow. “You aren’t gonna pass out again are you?”  
You shook your head. “No, I’m...fine.”  
“Then perhaps you could answer a few questions,” Peggy said. She came outside as Bucky stepped up to you, leaning down to look you in the eye. He seemed to genuinely care if you were about to pass out again. With a rush of blood to your cheeks you lowered your head, instead focusing your attention on Peggy.  
“Ah…” you stammered, glancing around. There was no way you could make a run for it--where would you even go? Your eyes fell on Steve’s biceps beside you. Yeah, running was definitely not an option.  
Bucky cleared his throat. “You look a little chilled, let’s head inside.”  
A swift breeze came down from the clouds, blowing right through your blazer and making the hair on your arms raise. Despite the suggestion and the cold, you didn’t move. You were glued to the ground, desperate to not change any of the events. But the words were on the tip of your tongue--each and every terrible event that would befall those before you.  
You had no idea what emotions your face was displaying, but you thought it must have been something else to make Bucky put a hand on your shoulder. He gave you a light shake and nodded his head backwards towards the door. “C’mon.”  
The way he pulled you back to the bar was firm but gentle, and you let him lead you there. Peggy had stern eyes on him when you stepped inside, the warmth of the bar doing little to comfort you. Still, with Bucky’s hand on your shoulder you felt a little better. Until you thought of what had happened in DC, that was. You sighed.  
When you made it to a table by a boarded up window, you fell into a hard chair. It screeched against the floorboards as it let you sink your head into your hands, elbows rested on the table.   
Peggy took the seat across from you, while Bucky moved to the bar and took a stool. The chair next to you was lifted and pulled back, allowing Steve to sit.   
“I don’t even know--” You leaned back and crossed your arms, shaking your head. “I cannot be here. Where’s here? Wait, I know where I am, just not when. Wait, I know when. Okay, so I’m here now, but not the then I wanted, which is later. And not now.” You sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly.  
“Making my head hurt doll,” Bucky said from the bar.   
Peggy straightened in her seat. “Perhaps you could start with your name, since you already know mine.”  
“I know who all of you are,” you stated without thinking. Your head shot up. “I mean, obviously, who doesn’t know who you guys are? The Howling Commandos and all that.” You tried to laugh but it came out choked. “I’m Y/N.”  
There was a long pause as they waited for you to continue, but you couldn’t quite do it. You couldn’t do it because you knew that soon Bucky was going to go on a mission that would cause his “death”. You stood, making everyone else do the same. The men you hadn’t noticed in the corner of the room were already pointing guns at you. So was Peggy. You gulped audibly as you stared down the barrel of her pistol.  
It was Steve that first raised his hand in a silent order to lower their weapons. The men did, and after a glance at him, Peggy did as well.  
“I need to go for a walk,” you announced. Oddly enough when you walked out the front door they let you, though you heard footsteps behind you. You kept going, not questioning what they were doing. Arms wrapped tight around your waist in a feeble attempt to keep warm, you kept your head down. Each and every soldier you passed watched you, probably questioning who you were, why you were dressed so strangely, and how you just popped up out of the shadows.   
Though you had visited this place in the future, you didn’t recognize anything. The rough buildings, the grey sky, or the snowy street you walked on...none of it looked the same in the future. Not until you made it to the edge of a forest did you recognize something.  
The trees were the same. A little shorter but just as grand as when you had visited them two days prior...eighty or so years from now. You rubbed your temples, taking breaths in five second intervals. If you just had a little more time to think, you could figure this out. You’d been in a jam before when it came to your time travel--like all those times you accidentally went backwards. Of course, you’d never gone this far before. You’d never gone to a time when you hadn’t existed.  
You cupped your hands around your mouth and blew long hot breaths onto them while you thought. Something had to have been different this time, but what? Bouncing on your heels, you found you couldn’t stand still. So you started walking, into the trees working on the memory of where the path was...in the future. God, that’s gonna be confusing, you thought.  
Each step crunched beneath your shoes, and brought a little bit of snow into them too. The snow melted against your socks, not quite soaking them but ensuring you were aware of the cold. You weren’t walking long before you stopped walking and crouched, enjoying the silence. You crouched, keeping your hands at your mouth to keep them warm.  
Crunch.  
You perked up and looked over your shoulder. Srgt. Barnes. He seemed wary of getting much closer to you, keeping a ten foot distance between you both. It was funny, you thought, that the famed Bucky Barnes was actually hesitant to get near you. He looked small, standing there beneath the giant trees, and you realized it was because he was smaller. At least smaller than he was in the future after HYDRA had used him. The difference wasn’t as dramatic as Captain America’s, but you could see it, now that he was standing near you.  
Standing, you took another deep breath. You stretched your neck to look at Bucky. “I’m so sorry.”  
You weren’t sure what you were apologizing for. Your behaviour, his future, his present...you wanted to apologize for it all even though it wasn’t really your fault. You looked forward and started running.  
When all else failed during your time travel, running like a bat outta hell to anywhere else usually helped.   
Usually.


End file.
